


The Porn That Saved The Galaxy

by violentdarlings



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Prequel Trilogy
Genre: Crack Treated Seriously, F/M, Gen, HoloNet, Obi-Wan Kenobi is a Mess, Padme Lives, Post-Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith, Pre-Star Wars: A New Hope, Propaganda
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-08-03
Updated: 2020-08-17
Packaged: 2021-03-05 19:14:11
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 11,271
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25690387
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/violentdarlings/pseuds/violentdarlings
Summary: Or: how to use erotic propaganda to discredit your enemies.Or: Padme is indomitable and Obi-Wan needs better friends.
Relationships: Padmé Amidala & Obi-Wan Kenobi, Padmé Amidala/Anakin Skywalker
Comments: 30
Kudos: 152





	1. Beginning

**Author's Note:**

> I wish I could say I'm ashamed of myself, but...

**FADE IN:**

**LARGE WORDS ON THE SCREEN:**

**SITH SHAG SAGA 3: AGGRESSIVE NEGOTIATIONS**

_An empty space hangar, dilapidated and damaged. It has seen better days. Two figures come into the frame. They are fighting one another with lightsabers. Their movements are slow and clearly telegraphed in advance. One is female ( **JEDI** ) dressed in a white tunic and brown leggings. The other is male, taller, dressed in all black with a mask ( **SITH** )._

**JEDI:**

You’ll never get away with this!

_She hits the SITH’s lightsaber hard with her own. He reels back but quickly recovers._

**SITH:**

You will join me.

_The SITH gestures, and the JEDI’s lightsaber goes flying. A LONG WIRE is clearly visible attached to the end of the JEDI’s lightsaber as it flings into a corner._

**JEDI (breathless, chest heaving under her thin tunic):**

I will never join you and your dark master!

_She gestures, and the SITH is pushed back a step. Still he advances._

**SITH** :

Give yourself over to me. Together we will rule the galaxy.

_The JEDI sneers._

**JEDI:**

I will not be a slave to a creature in a mask!

_The SITH stops, tilts his masked head. The hand not holding his lightsaber rises, removing his mask._

**JEDI (horrified):**

You!

**SITH:**

Yes, it is I. Your former master.

_Cue dramatic music._

**JEDI:**

Master Darkness! I have searched for you for years now. I knew you could not be dead like everyone told me.

**SITH:**

Indeed, I am alive. But unless you submit to me, the same will not be true of you for long, my former padawan.

**JEDI (clearly not listening, eyes shining):**

Come back with me. I will heal your dark heart with my love!

_She rips open her tunic, exposing luscious breasts straining against –_

“Oh, really.” Padmé drops the script. “Luscious? Who is even writing this stuff?”

Obi-Wan stirs his tea absently, engrossed in his own datapad, the very picture of calm serenity. Padmé kind of wants to punch him. “It can’t be any worse than the last one,” he murmurs. Padmé groans, throwing down her datapad.

“Want to bet?” she asks, and flips forward a few pages. She reads aloud: “ **SITH** **(persuasively, hard bulge straining his trousers):** Yield before me, and I will give you pleasure beyond all your dreams. You will be penetrated by the Dark Side. My dark power will explode all over you.”

As she intones the last, Obi-Wan’s sip of tea comes back up rather violently, splattering all over the table. Padmé thumps him on the back as he tries to recover the patency of his airway.

“I don’t think I can do this one,” he croaks out. Padmé, satisfied he is able to resume breathing normally, turns back to her datapad.

“Just lie back and think of the galaxy,” Padmé advises him. She smirks at him. “I suggested the title.”

* * *

To go back to the beginning, technically, Padmé _had_ died.

For four minutes and thirteen seconds she had been completely unresponsive. The droids had resuscitated her, but sometimes she is certain she would have died regardless if not for the man in the room with her, the one who had handed her children to strangers so he could stay by her side, willing Padmé to breathe, willing her to return to life.

She did. She’s not entirely sure that it wouldn’t have been better for all concerned if she’d stayed dead.

Luke had gone to Tatooine and Leia had gone to Alderaan, and Padmé had kissed their tiny heads and hands in goodbye, and then locked them away in her heart. Everything is different, now. The Empire is stretching out its malicious tendrils to every corner of the galaxy. It had not taken Padmé long to find the fledgling Rebellion, the seeds of which had begun not even a year after Palpatine had taken complete power. Nor had it taken much to drag her companion along with her, for all his complaints and frustration. Idleness had not suited Obi-Wan. It does not much suit Padmé either.

It has been five years since everything changed. Padmé has two five-year-old children out there in the galaxy, she has been a widow for all that time. Obi-Wan does not speak of what happened to Anakin on Mustafar, but Padmé knows her husband; she knows his possessiveness, his jealousy, his rage. If he had survived, he would have come for her.

He has not come.

Padmé keeps busy. She keeps Obi-Wan busy. She is one of the leaders of the Rebellion, for all that she does not like to attend the briefings and make the decisions. She likes to be in the field.

It’s the only place she still feels like she’s alive.

“Padmé.” Bail catches her by the arm at the tail end of a meeting. Padmé had only been there because Mon Mothma had given her a direct order to do so. Obi-Wan had been allowed to bow out, the sneaky bastard. He is even less interested in command than Padmé herself.

They are both too tired of being in charge.

“Bail,” she replies, and does not say, _you have my baby how is Leia._ Leia is not Padmé’s baby anymore. Someone else gets to hold Leia in their arms and kiss her goodnight. “Something I can do for you?”

She is blunter, these days. She is not diplomatic or reserved. Padmé speaks her mind. She knows it still catches Bail off guard.

“You need to be more careful,” he tells her, and Padmé quirks an eyebrow.

“Spoken by someone who is very much _not_ risking his neck on a regular basis,” she replies archly, her gait quickening. Bail winces.

“I do what I can,” he defends angrily. Padmé looks away. She doesn’t want to be having this conversation with him. She doesn’t want to be having _any_ conversation with him. “Padmé, someone uploaded a holo of you and Obi-Wan liberating those materials on Dantooine. It’s on one of the secure sites, which is better than it being out there for everyone to view, but it’s still online.”

Padmé stills. “You are sure?” Bail’s face is solemn.

“You are unmistakable,” he tells her, with something like sorrowful amusement. “As you have always been.”

Despite herself, Padmé is touched. She lays her hand on Bail’s arm, just for a moment. “Be careful, old friend,” she murmurs. “You are safeguarding more than yourself.”

But long after he is gone, the worry is a cold dagger in Padmé’s heart. She watches the holo herself, poorly lit footage from outside warehouse they had sacked, a handful of brief instances where both she and Obi-Wan are completely visible, from head to toe. She curses. Her face is recognisable, as is Obi-Wan’s, and the Emperor’s enforcer had killed her husband with such vicious prejudice. It is not inconceivable that Vader might come after her, or after Obi-Wan, to finish the job of destroying every last remnant of Anakin Skywalker left in the universe. If Vader finds out about the babies –

Padmé takes a deep breath, and shoves thoughts of the future to the side. Her children are well-hidden, and she has her duty. All she can do is focus on her here and now.

Padmé tells herself the holo is nothing, a once off, but much to her chagrin, that is not the end of it. The holos keep getting uploaded, many of them from past operations when she and Obi-Wan had been working for themselves, trying to get Imperial supplies to the people who needed them most, and by so many different accounts. She and Obi-Wan aren’t the only ones. Mon, Rex, several of the other cells – they all receive the same treatment. Any footage of them possible makes it onto the holonet, onto secure sites where the origins of the footage cannot be traced, and all of them tagged.

_#freedom_

_#freethegalaxy_

_#rebelswithacause_

_#gokriffyourselfPalpatine_

_#untileveryoneisfreeweareallslaves_

_#benandbrighttotherescue_

That’s herself and Obi-Wan. Their Resistance codenames have somehow been leaked, and now that there’s out there. Padmé isn’t sure how long the aliases will last. She was a Senator, and before that a queen, for the stars’ sake. If reprisals were to come against her family, or Naboo as a whole, there is nothing Padmé could do to prevent it.

She forces herself to stop looking at the grainy footage of herself and Obi-Wan stealing a transport loaded with medicine, one of their more recent escapades, and instead scrolls through the many comments. As ever, they are a mixed bag.

**Strooperfanf8915:**

_Ben and bright are traters to the Empire and will be punished_

**wewillbefree** replied to **Strooperfan8915:**

_You don’t even have the right to speak their names Imperial scum – and it’s ‘traitors’. If you look it up in a dictionary you’ll see a picture of yourself_

**Strooperfan8915** replied to **wewillbefree:**

_go kriff yourself_

Padmé shakes her head. Minor quibbling on the holonet will not save the galaxy. Still, part of her appreciates the defence of strangers.

She almost doesn’t see it. Buried between two would-be politicians debating Imperial economics and a post by some lunatic linking Darth Vader to every major success the Empire has had in the past five years.

**kriff-the-empire**

_I’d pay ten thousand credits to see Ben and Bright go at it._

Go at it, Padmé thinks bemusedly, her brain slow from fatigue. Go _at_ it. Go towards it? Go over it? Go at them? She runs a hand through her hair, shaking her curls into some semblance of order. Go _at_ it – with Obi-Wan –

The credit drops. Padmé flushes, looking around furtively despite no one being present with her. To be intimate – with _Obi-Wan_ , who occasionally gives Padmé the impression that since Anakin’s defection he has lived in a universe of his own. Padmé cannot begin to fathom the depth of a relationship between a Master and their Padawan. Obi-Wan still fights sometimes like he expects someone else to be there beside him, or at his back, an extension of his own body. Padmé is only a poor substitute.

Still. Ten thousand credits.

She knows it is probably idle chitchat on the holoweb, most likely a man being an ass just for the sake of being an ass. But Padmé is so tired, from their most recent mission. One long exhausting week to gather resources that are only worth a few hundred credits, if they are even worth that much at all. What would it be like, to rest? What would it be like, to be bold again? She may be blunter now, but Padmé lives in the shadows. Her life is in the darkness.

Once she had lived in the light.

The wicked impulse seizes hold of her as quick as breathing, and before Padmé has had too long to think about it, she clicks on the post and replies, through her anonymous and heavily scrambled account.

 **xwgsoih760d** replied to **kriff-the-empire:**

_This is Bright. Put your money where your mouth is. Half now, half after, into the following account._

Padmé doesn’t expect anything to come of it. But when she checks back half a day later there is two hundred and forty-six new comments

_(Bright watches these like oh my stars woman you are my hero)_

_(when Vader gets hold of you rebel your life won’t be worth living)_

_(please bring medicine to Altera III, we are dying in the mines)_

_(Bright)_

_(bright bright bright Bright **BRIGHT** )_

as well as several thousand reacts.

The most relevant response, however, is from **kriff-the-empire** :

_You’re on, Bright._

She checks the drop account with hands that shake.

 **Kriff-the-empire** is as good as their word.

“You’ve gone mad,” Obi-Wan says blankly. Padmé scowls and crosses the space between them, jamming her datapad under his nose. She watches his eyes widen at the figure.

“Money doesn’t lie,” she informs him. “Even if the idiot doesn’t pay the second amount. A deal is a deal. I don’t break mine.” Obi-Wan runs a hand through his hair. She picked up that habit from him.

“No, you just inveigle me into situations which don’t concern me,” he retorts. “I am not able to fulfil your promise to this _– holonet troll_. I am a Jedi, you know. Attachments are forbidden to me.” Padmé laughs.

“Attachments, yes,” she says, when she’s stopped laughing at him. “But if you expect me to believe you’re a blushing virgin, Master Kenobi, then you think me very foolish indeed. Your reputation used to be something of a legend, amongst certain members of the Senate.” Obi-Wan glares at her.

“This is not an appropriate topic of discussion,” he snaps, striding away from her. Padmé watches him go. He’s a fine figure of a man, for all he seems to have aged ten years in five. She understands the appeal of him to the strangers on the holoweb.

She goes to his side. He is taller than her, not so much as Anakin was, but Padmé still only reaches his shoulder. She threads her fingers through Obi-Wan’s and feels him tense. He watched her give birth. She knew him on the worst day of his life. They are still so much like strangers.

 _He is here in her quarters. Any minute now, she will have her hands on him._ Padmé does not listen to that small, persuasive voice inside of her. This is not for her.

“Think of all we could do for the galaxy with that kind of capital.” Padmé says softly, her voice imploring. “That is our purpose, is it not. To serve the galaxy. And it would be over quickly. You don’t even have to kiss me if you want.”

Obi-Wan has remained impassive up until now, but something about the word kiss shakes him. Padmé watches him swallow, his eyes darkening and dropping involuntarily to her chest. Padmé wets her lips, surprised. She hadn’t thought Obi-wan even notices she is female, most of the time.

“If it’s for the galaxy,” Obi-Wan allows. Padmé beams at him, and cautiously, Obi-Wan smiles back. His smiles are so much sadder now, Padmé thinks. The light has dimmed in his eyes.

“Good. The holocapture is in the corner there, “she tells him, and gestures. Obi-Wan follows her gaze to the floating device, a light blinking in it stubbornly. He raises his eyebrows.

“Now? “he questions. Padmé shrugs. She’s nervous. Why is she nervous. She has seen Obi-Wan without his clothes before. They’ve been captured several times now, stripped, examined, even tortured together. In some ways, he’s closer to her than even Anakin had been.

She’s just never seen him – well, _aroused_ before.

“No time like the present,” she replies. Obi-wan shakes his head. His smile reaches his eyes now. “It’s hardly the worst thing I’ve ever asked you to do,” she teases, the nerves gone. This is just Obi-Wan. There’s nothing in him she needs fear. “You won’t have to climb a fifty-foot fence or get stabbed or put in women’s clothing _this_ time.”

Obi-Wan smiles. “That last one wasn’t so bad,” he allows. “I have quite the figure for a corset, you know.” Padmé grins back at him. She does know.

“So?” she prompts. The curve of his lips straightens, but the smile is there in his eyes all the same.

“Well, there’s nothing for it,” Obi-Wan sighs, and drops his robes to the floor.

The footage is grainy, the lighting is awful, and the editing is appalling. Still, Padmé smiles at the six-minute holo. It is clearly what the holonet user asked for, for all there is no graphic display. Light kissing, a bit of fondling, and then herself and Obi-Wan on a bed, tangled up together. The man who has edited the holo together waits anxiously, shifting from foot to foot.

“Are you sure I shouldn’t fetch Master Kenobi,” he starts, and gets no further. Padmé gives him her senator glare, the one she doesn’t have to break out as often anymore but that still garners her the same results it did in the Senate.

“Obi-Wan and I are in complete accordance,” she replies severely, and turns her gaze back to the footage. On a whim, she pauses it. Past-Obi-Wan is on top of past-Padmé, his hips working, his perky ass flexing as he thrusts. Past-Padmé has her arms around him and her head thrown back. Her breasts are crushed against his chest. They both still have their shirts on.

She looks like she’s in love.

“Upload it, then,” she tells the man. “And put the link to the drop account in the description,” she says as an afterthought. “You never know, someone might have credits to waste.”

It turns out people have a lot of credits to waste, and Padmé spends the following month carefully siphoning off said funds into where the Rebellion needs them most, as well as a handful of personal ventures. She takes Obi-Wan out on a two-week mission, jumping from planet to planet to planet, sometimes three or four a day, barely sleeping. The hold of the battered old freighter she and Obi-Wan jointly own was stuffed to the brim by the time they get back to base; spare parts, weapons, food both perishable and non-perishable. Padmé lands the ship, leaves it in the capable hands of her favourite mechanic with orders not to unload the supplies yet, and waves an absent-minded goodbye at Obi-Wan before she goes to her quarters, showers, and sleeps for twenty hours.

The next few days are taken up with distributing their hoard. The mess is grateful for the food, the mechanics for the parts, and the armoury for the weapons. Indeed, the venture had been entirely profitable, and Padmé puts it cleanly out of her mind.

And then the Rebellion finds out.

Mon Mothma plays the holo in the briefing room. Padmé only endures twelve seconds of the footage, and of Obi-Wan cringing in his seat, before she stands up, strides over to the projector, and turns it off. “If you had a point to make,” she says, her back to the room, spine straight and fury welling in her veins. “I will go ahead and assume you have made it.”

“This has been a profitable venture for you, Padmé,” Mon says mildly. Padmé turns.

“And you will find that most of the credits sent to me have been redistributed into the Rebellion. I did not engage in such a venture for personal profit.”

Obi-Wan has buried his face in his hands. It is almost enough to bring Padmé up short, until a nasal voice interrupts her and gives her a new target to focus on.

“This is not decent.”

Padmé turns to eye the speaker, a newer member of the Alliance, previously of the Imperial army. She doesn’t trust him. “You have something to add, Major Seev?” The humanoid’s face twists, accentuating the strange curls of his ears.

“You cannot seriously mean to purport to the wide galaxy that this Alliance is – are –” Padmé waits patiently for him to stop stuttering. “You mean to portray us as purveyors of –” Seev screws up his face again. “Filth.”

Padmé crosses her arms across her chest. “I serve this Rebellion with the whole of my body,” she informs him. “If you are not prepared to do the same, then there is little I can do about it.”

“Padmé,” Mon scolds, admonishment heavy in the single word alone. “You should have told us.” Padmé gapes at her and begins to speak, but Mon raises a single finger to quiet her. “Because this is the most successful quarter we have had since I began the Rebellion.”

Padmé’s mouth snaps shut.

“it may be unorthodox,” Mon continues, “but it has been successful, both financially and in bringing our cause to the notice of the galaxy. We have more new recruits than ever before. More than sixty percent of them have attributed their desire to join our case to the following reasons.” She squints down at her datapad and reads: “To bring peace to the galaxy, to follow in Ben and Bright’s footsteps, and to make a difference in the lives of ordinary citizens of the Empire.”

 _Sure, all of those, and Obi-Wan Kenobi’s fine ass, Padmé_ thinks wickedly to herself, imagining said ass with a little thrum of appreciation.

Obi-Wan makes an odd noise. Padmé eyes him for a moment.

“We will not be respected,” Major Seev whines. “We will not be given our due recognition and admiration from the rest of the galaxy. We will be a laughingstock. A joke.”

Padmé puts her hands on her hips. “As long as we win, I couldn’t care less what the galaxy thinks of me,” she snaps. “Perhaps you should try it, _Major_.”

The silence is deafening, but it is broken eventually, by Mon’s soft cough. “You have made your point, Padmé,” she announces. “I intend to table this discussion to a later date. You may take your seat.”

The later date comes quicker than Padmé would have liked.

Scarcely a week later, she is called to a briefing. They enter the room together, only to find all the leaders of the Rebellion: Mon Mothma, Bail, the newcomer, Seev; Captain Rex, even Fulcrum, through a holonet connection, and a few others Padmé only knows by sight.

“After careful consideration,” Mon begins, and Padmé shifts in her chair. She dislikes the feel of this already. “We have decided to allow you to continue making your holos.”

Padmé fires up immediately. She’s been spoiling for a good fight all week. “How kind,” she bites out. “Whether I or Obi-Wan wish to do so is, of course, not on the table. The leaders of our fine Rebellion may consent, but not those who will be directly involved in its manufacture. No, of course not. That would be absurd.

Mon closes her eyes, as if for patience, and continues as though Padmé has not said a word. “It will be an opportunity to denounce Palpatine’s rule, and we have several other propaganda projects in the works, but yours will be through the medium of, uh –”

“Fucking,” Captain Rex supplies, blunt as ever. Padmé glances at him. His eyes are twinkling with barely hidden glee. Anakin would think of all this absurd too, she reminisces sadly. But he’d have been the first to put his hand up to take his pants off for the Resistance. That was Anakin.

“Thank you, Rex, for that illuminating addition,” Fulcrum says dryly. She is not visible; only her voice is being projected through the holonet. If her voice is painfully familiar to Padmé, she refuses to let herself think on it. “Of course, Padmé, you have the opportunity to refuse.” A dark note makes its way into Fulcrum’s voice. “But you did say you were prepared to serve the Rebellion with your entire self…”

Padmé winces. Impaled on her own lightsaber, indeed. “Will someone be directing us?” she asks, her tone arch. “Is there a script?”

She was mocking them, but then Mon lifts a stack of datapads onto the table. Padmé eyes them. That’s a very large stack.

“The following have been supplied to us.” Mon cleared her throat, and Padmé swears there’s two tiny dots of red on the older woman’s cheeks. “ _Space Sluts_ , the story of five females with sixteen breasts between them –”

Padmé can’t help it; she groans. “I can smell the misogyny from here,” she snaps. “Is that really what we want the galaxy to think of our cause? Please, no _Space Sluts_.”

“Agreed,” Mon replies immediately, but she is interrupted from speaking further.

“My apologies for my tardiness.” Obi-Wan enters the room and as usual, commands the attention of most of it. He slinks around the council table as if trying to blend into the furniture. “What have I missed?” Padmé smiles at him, but her eyes are cold as Hoth; she sees him notice her ire, and adjusts himself accordingly. He leans back in his chair, legs crossed, posture open and expression guileless… and entirely on guard.

“You do remember when we made our little holo,” Padmé says calmly, although she feels anything but. “Our colleagues would like us to make another one.” Obi-Wan raises an eyebrow. It’s his Negotiator face. Padmé never knows what he’s thinking behind it.

“Is that so?” he asks mildly. Mon clears her throat.

“If I may continue, Knight Kenobi?” she asks. Obi-Wan nods, gracious and serene, but Padmé knows this would be making him terribly uncomfortable. The poor man. If she’d known their silly little ten thousand credit holo would have led to this –

Well. She still would have done it.

“ _PornTrooper_ ,” Mon reads aloud. “An energetic battle. One man takes on an entire squadron… with his –”

“No,” Obi-Wan says, at the same time Rex says, “Cock.” Obi-Wan slants an unreadable expression to the trooper. “We don’t even have that many suits of Stormtrooper gear to accommodate such a production,” Obi-Wan fills in smoothly. “Unless you propose we go after an Imperial starship to retrieve some?”

“Indeed not,” Fulcrum snaps.

“This really isn’t that bad,” Rex says to no one in particular. Mon rounds on him. It’s like Padmé isn’t the only one spoiling for a fight.

“You’re a soldier, Captain,” she snaps. “Your tolerance for vulgarity is significantly higher than my own.”

“Why, thank you,” Rex deadpans, and slides Padmé a wink.

She smirks back at him.

The rest are variations on a theme, and Padmé is developing a very unpleasant throbbing in her temples. At least if there are no appropriate scripts there will be no further holo productions, she decides, and has already mentally moved on when Mon comes to the last datapad. Padmé is tense and tired and angry, and she wants this to be over.

Her colleagues are no better. One could cut the tension in the chamber with a rusty blade.

“We come to the last,” Mon says, and she looks exhausted. “A short script from an anonymous contributor involving a passionate romance between a Sith and a Jedi.”

The tension breaks. Padmé laughs despite herself, Obi-Wan splutters, and even Rex snorts. “Sure,” he says, voice dry as a desert. “That’s a great idea. Let’s comm Vader and see if he’s free.” There’s another ripple of laughter.

“It would not feature a true Sith,” Mon says, her voice severe, except Padmé knows her well enough to hear the amusement she is fighting to hide. “The writer has expressed their desire to ‘portray a relationship that transcends the bounds of good and evil and brings together those throughout the galaxy who strive to bring about peace and goodwill regardless of their differences’.” She squints down at the datapad as if personally offended by it.

Obi-wan laughs. It’s rather more high-pitched than usual. “What an excellent idea,” he clips out. “Truly revolutionary. It’s just _pornography_ , by the Force. It doesn’t have to have a _plot_.”

“The licentiousness of the subject matter is secondary to its true meaning,” Bail points out. Padmé could kiss him. “It’s what it represents. It is media that dares to offer a narrative that is contradictory to that put about by the Empire.” Padmé darts a glance at him. He is stroking his chin, evidently deep in thought. “I think this might be the best of the bunch. I propose we use –” He looks at Mon.

“ _Sith Shag Saga_ , “she fills in, her mouth turned down like she’s bitten into something unpleasant. Rex lets out an odd cough; when Padmé peeks at him, his hand is not sufficient to hide the twitching of his lips.

“ _Sith Shag Saga_ ,” Bail repeats. The words sound absurd in his cultured voice. “This should be the one.”

Obi-Wan makes a sound like he’s just managed to choke on his own tongue. “Bail,” he begins, but his usual Negotiator voice is trembling, “Forgive me, but with the deepest respect, you’re not really suggesting –”

“Why not?” Padmé asks.

All eyes turn to her, at the far end of the table. She is not so long gone from her Senate days that she squirms in her seat, but something about being the centre of attention, in a conversation like this, makes her skin itch. “It could help us,” she continues. “We need the galaxy to know Palpatine is evil, don’t we? On most planets people wouldn’t know a Sith from a Jedi. If we show them what the difference is –”

Obi-Wan is rubbing the bridge of his nose, the furrow between his eyes deepening. “There is education,” he says, his voice controlled. “And then there is the mockery of my order, shaming us before the entire galaxy.”

Padmé sighs. She pities him, she truly does. “You have no order, Obi-Wan,” she replies, as gently as she knows how. “The Emperor and Darth Vader saw to that. You are clinging to the remnants of the past, and it is blinding you to the possibilities of the future.” _Search your feelings_ , she thinks on a whim. _You know I am right._

His head flies up and he stares at her with wild eyes. It can be no coincidence. He must have been able to hear her. “I will not countenance this,” he intones, and is gone from the room before Padmé can think to protest.

Padmé finds him in the hangar, perched at the very top of a column. She plants her hands on her hips and looks up at him. “I can’t use the Force to get up there with you,” she calls up at him.

“No, all you need is a chain,” drifts down to her. Padmé grimaces at the memory, of that terrible day in that burning-hot arena, blood soaking into the sand. Her back still aches sometimes where the beast had slashed her.

“Obi-Wan,” she says, and taps her foot once. A gusty sigh is the only answer, before invisible hands take hold of Padmé and, with infinite care lift her up, higher and higher, before settling her safely beside Obi-Wan.

She stares out at the wilderness, through the open door of the hangar. It could be Naboo, if she squints a little. It could be home, and longing for it twists in her gut. For all of them. Her parents, her husband, her babies.

“You know, I don’t understand why they all have to be space-themed,” she complains, to hide the sorrow. “What’s wrong with the old classic ‘I’m here to fix your sonic shower’ or ‘hello miss, I’ve brought you a delicious Nabooian nerve knocker, would you like to take your clothes off?’”

Obi-Wan snorts. His eyes are fixed on the distance. The hangar is still open, and the sun is setting. Padmé has not seen anything that is both uncomplicated and beautiful in so long.

Obi-Wan is beautiful. But he is the very definition of complicated.

“I suppose there’s no hope of my being excluded from this… project,” Obi-Wan murmurs eventually, the distaste in his voice evident. Padmé huffs. She’s so tired of having to fight all the time. She feels her best when he’s on her side, the daft man.

“Of course they want you,” she replies, exasperated. “You’re the best-looking man on this base.”

Obi-Wan preens a little. In these Rebel days he is a far cry from his cultured, well-groomed Coruscanti self, but he’s still the same vain peacock, Padmé thinks dryly. “Fishing for compliments is not an attractive trait,” she informs him, but it falls on deaf ears.

He is handsome, she considers grudgingly. His red-gold hair is threaded with silver in places, his beard a little unkempt, but Padmé can still see that same handsome Padawan who rescued her with Master Qui-Gon all those years ago. Who had helped protect her when her life was threatened. Who had told her that her beloved had slaughtered younglings, little children, even as Padmé’s own twisted and kicked in her womb –

Padmé swallows, and forces the thoughts from her mind.

Obi-wan has not noticed her mood darken. “So who am I to play in this farce?” he asks. Padmé drags herself back to the present. “Have they invented some absurd name for me to go by? Jedi Jack-Hammer, or similar?”

Padmé can barely keep a straight face. She peeks at Obi-Wan gravely through her lashes. “I’m not sure you have what it takes to play Jedi Jack-Hammer,” she murmurs, and at his offended expression, she can’t keep a straight face for longer than a heartbeat before she bursts out laughing. “Oh, Obi-Wan,” she says fondly, and lays her head on his shoulder. “I could not imagine bearing this life without you.”

Her light-hearted comment lingers in the silence, grows heavier with meaning Padmé did not intend. She would be embarrassed, but a strong arm loops around her shoulder, pulls her just a little into Obi-Wan’s side. She buries her nose in his robes, inhaling the smell of him, more familiar after five years than the memory of Anakin’s. her dusty, careworn Knight, both of them relics from a former age.

“Sometimes I can hear you, in my mind,” Obi-Wan says quietly. “Did you know that?”

Padmé nods. She doesn’t look up at his face. “You were there, the day I died,” she reminds him. “Maybe you are the reason I came back to life.” Obi-Wan huffs.

“You came back to life because you’re too stubborn to stay dead,” he retorts. “You’re almost as bad as –” He stops, takes a deep breath, gathers himself. Padmé waits. “As Anakin,” he finishes, his voice unsteady. His hand tightens in her own. “Force, I miss him,” Obi-Wan whispers.

Padmé lays her head back down on his shoulder. There is nothing she can say to comfort him.

The sunset is almost over.


	2. An Erotic Reimagining - Part One

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sith Shag Saga starts to come together. No pun intended.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am incredibly blown away by the response to this story. Thank you everyone who commented or left kudos. I honestly wasn't sure about posting this because I am very new to the Star Wars fandom and I thought this might be *too* cracky, but you've all been so lovely. Enjoy!

**FADE IN:**

**LARGE WORDS ON THE SCREEN:**

**SITH SHAG SAGA: AN EROTIC REIMAGINING**

_We are on a desert planet. Sand, dust balls, cacti, rocks, weird lizard things. Into the frame tromps a male figure in black leather, masked, quite scary looking ( **SITH** ). He is SPEAKING into a HOLO RECEIVER on his arm._

**SITH:**

Master, I have arrived at the site of the disturbance.

**MASTER:**

**(over holo, wheezing, ancient-sounding voice, like if one of the weird lizard things could talk)**

Do not fail me, my apprentice.

**SITH:**

I will not.

_The HOLOCALL ends._

**SITH: (mimicking aggressively)**

_Do not fail me, my apprentice._ I don’t see _him_ dragging his pasty ass out here to the back end of nowhere to investigate a disturbance in the Force.

_He KICKS a rock ANGRILY._

**SITH:**

Ow!

_Out of frame:_

**FEMALE VOICE (amused):**

You seem to be struggling there.

_The camera tracks his GAZE over to our hero, the **JEDI**. She is a small but fierce humanoid, with dark hair pinned up out of her eyes, in traditional **JEDI** costume, a LIGHTSABER hanging from her hip._

**SITH: (menacingly):**

I should have known one of your wretched kind was behind the disturbance.

**JEDI:**

My kind? You mean a woman?

_We take a moment to appreciate that she is a woman. In fact, a very fine and attractive WOMAN. The **SITH** seems to be doing the same._

**SITH:**

No. (with utmost revulsion) A _Jedi_.

**JEDI:**

Oh, that.

_The two enemies circle each other warily. The JEDI is much smaller than the SITH, but she is not to be underestimated._

**JEDI:**

Don’t make me draw my ‘saber, SITH. Or should I call you Darth? Darth what?

**SITH (clearly very proud of his moniker):**

Darth… Potato. (pronounced Po-tay-ta.)

**JEDI (thoughtfully):**

That’s the stupidest name I’ve ever heard. Your wrinkly mentor give you that?

**SITH (very angrily):**

How dare you!

_The **SITH** rushes towards her as if to attack, only to trip on a weird lizard thing and fall over comically. As this occurs, his sleeve catches on a nearby cactus. The force (no pun) is such that his entire shirt is ripped from his muscular frame and flaps limply from the cactus._

**JEDI (eyes widening):**

You have… lost your shirt.

**SITH:**

Kriffing hell!

_He stands. The hem of his trouser leg has become caught on a rock. He tugs, only for his pants to be torn off him entirely. The **SITH** is now very naked except for his mask. He is very well-built, scarred in places and pale from lack of sunlight. The **JEDI** stares at him._

**JEDI: (hoarsely)**

Oh, my.

_The **SITH** snatches up his lightsaber from the wreck of his clothing. He brandishes it at the **JEDI**. The red WEAPON pulsates angrily._

**SITH:**

To the death!

**JEDI (after several seconds of silence)**

Or we could not.

**SITH:**

What did you say?

**JEDI (with more confidence):**

Let’s not battle each other to death. I can think of something else we can do.

_She draws a seductive line from her throat down to the cleavage exposed by her tunic._

**JEDI:**

We don’t have to be enemies. We could… balance the Force together.

_it is clear from her tone that 'balance the Force' is some kind of euphemism._

**SITH (still kind of oblivious):**

How?

_The JEDI rips her tunic off. She is wearing nothing underneath except her leggings, which she quickly kicks off. She stands before the SITH in all her naked glory._

**JEDI (breathlessly):**

Like this.

_The JEDI walks towards the SITH, unafraid of his still-lit lightsaber. She pauses when she is within striking reach. Silence, as the two foes stare at each other._

_The SITH, very carefully, turns off his fiery blade, and lays it down on the sand beside him._

_The SITH was not wearing a cloak earlier, but there is now one lying on the sand. He takes the JEDI in his arms and roughly throws her down onto it._

_The music begins. It has a lot of TRUMPETS in it._

**SITH:**

I’m going to fuck the Jedi out of you.

“I’m going to fuck the Jedi out of you,” Obi-Wan says uncertainly from behind the mask, and like all eight times today they have tried to run the scene, Padmé doubles over with uncontrollable laughter. Obi-Wan pulls the mask of his face. He’s scowling. “You’re not helping,” he says severely to Padmé. “And I can’t breathe in that damn thing.”

Padmé wipes her eyes. “I’m sorry, Obi-Wan,” she says in between hiccups. “But you really aren’t selling it. You sound like you’re worried your old creche-master will come and give you garden detail for cursing.”

“This is unbecoming,” Obi-Wan sniffs in his haughtiest Coruscant tones, which is code for he’s feeling uncomfortable and wants to draw attention away from it. Padmé stifles her laughter, but only barely.

“It has to be at least a little bit sexy, or no one will want to watch it,” she tells him bracingly. “You’re not an unattractive man, my friend. Or was it Anakin who was the most-requested Jedi for ‘protection detail’ by the ladies of the Senate during the war?” Obi-Wan scowls.

“It was me,” he admits begrudgingly. Padmé slaps him on the back.

“There you go. All you have to do is get the words right, and then we can start to run the…” She winks at him. “Physical stuff.”

Obi-Wan glares at her, apparently not reassured. “It’s easy for you to say,” he snaps. “You’re the nice one in our little drama. And you were a queen, for Force’s sake. You’re used to being –” He flaps his hand in her general vicinity. “ _Watched_.”

Padmé has to bite back a smile. He’s so pretty when he’s cross. “And the language!” Obi-Wan continues, working himself up a good head of steam. Padmé crosses her arms, leans against the table, and lets him go at it. “No one could sound enticing with dialogue this appalling.” He glances down at his holopad again as if mortally offended by its very existence.

Padmé flutters her lashes at him, letting her gaze go heavy. “I’m going to fuck the Jedi out of you,” she purrs, voice an octave lower than usual, and licks her lips. Obi-Wan freezes, eyes caught on her face. “See? It’s not that hard.”

“It is now,” Obi-Wan mutters, but Padmé hears him anyway. She snorts.

“And you say I do nothing for you.”

Padmé vastly underestimated the effort that apparently goes into shooting pornography.

For one thing, SSS (as they’ve taken to calling it, to save time) is set on a desert planet. She sits through an hour-long debate about whether to film it in a real desert or mock one up, with the newly formed Propaganda Team. It consists of herself, Rex, Major Seev, and a Twi’lek former slave called Aveera, who was owned for several years by a Hutt who dealt in black market goods and producing highly misogynistic and exploitative erotic films. What Aveera doesn’t know about filming people fucking isn’t worth knowing, apparently, and Padmé likes the other woman instantly.

The inclusion of herself and Rex makes sense. Padmé is the cause of it, after all, and Rex has a healthy soldierly open-mindedness as well as an inherent filthiness and a sense of the absurd that lends itself well to this type of work. But Seev… Padmé remembers the man’s initial response to the idea of using pornography to illuminate the true nature of the Empire to the wider galaxy. He had been horrified, and judgmental. But there he is, grimly facing down every briefing, taking notes, listening, offering suggestions. It is clear he hasn’t seen many dirty holos, but that’s not an issue. Rex and Aveera have seen enough for the rest of them.

Aveera sets about recruiting a team, with Padmé’s blessing. The Twi’lek finds two Resistance fighters who were students at the Coruscant School of Fine Arts before the planet became the heart of the Imperial Empire. Vix and Ranyr are tasked with learning and manning the two heavy holorecorders that Padmé and Obi-Wan have ‘liberated’ from an Imperial outpost in the Kanz sector. Aveera had been pleased, although she had tried to hide it, and had introduced them both to Kaylee, a young Zeltron, short for her kind but with bright blue hair and dark, mischievous eyes. “Hair and makeup,” Aveera says as Padmé watches the girl bounce off to Vix, cooing over the holorecorder he is holding. “Plus she might come in handy. Evvus always said that a Zeltron on the shoot made a holo that little bit hotter.” The woman’s voice is bitter as she speaks of her former master. Padmé lays a hand on Aveera’s arm.

“We will use what he taught you, and when we are victorious, I will come with you to kill him,” Padmé promises. Aveera smiles.

“They told me that Bright was a fearsome woman,” she comments. “I didn’t know what to believe, I didn’t know you then.” The arm under Padmé’s hand is strong, but thin. Kaylee had looked scrawny too. Padmé really must find some extra rations somewhere. “I know you now.”

“I should hope so,” Padmé murmurs. “You’re going to be directing me fucking Knight Kenobi.” Aveera’s mouth twists. She knows Obi-Wan’s been struggling to get the tone right.

“How’s he doing?”

Terribly.

Part of the problem is that Obi-Wan is simply… too _good_. He had been an exemplary Jedi, and even his recent years of exile have not diminished that. He recites the Sith character’s lines with heartfelt fervour, the sweetness of his soul shining in his eyes. Unless he’s wearing the mask. Then he coughs and splutters his way through the scene. Padmé had laughed at first, when he spoke the lines like a scolded youngling, but she’s not laughing anymore.

“What if we swap?” she suggests. Obi-Wan is sitting on his bed, his head in his hands, but he raises weary eyes to her when she speaks. “I’ll be the Sith. You can be the Jedi saving me from my wicked ways.”

Obi-Wan shakes his head. “It’s important for the viewers to identify the Sith as a male. If it raises their awareness of Sidious and Vader as evil, all the better.” Padmé tilts her head.

“But you’re suffering,” she says gently. “I hate to see you in pain.” His smile is a thin, faded little thing.

“It is not the prospect of filming the holo that is haunting me,” he replies. “It is what you said in the briefing. The Jedi are gone, either wiped out or in hiding for the rest of their lives.” Padmé winces.

It was cruel of me to put it to you so harshly,” she concedes. “Sometimes I – forget to be kind.” It is his turn to seek out her eyes.

“You were right,” he acknowledges. “And you are kind, where it matters. But this is the part that I can’t seem to move past – if all the Jedi are gone, lost to me, why do I still feel like one? Shouldn’t that part of me died with all the rest?” _Anakin_ , neither of them say, but Padmé hears it all the same.

“You will always be a Jedi,” she promises, and on impulse rises from his desk chair to sit next to him on the bed. Obi-Wan moves away, but only a little. He’d have gotten up if he were truly uncomfortable. “It is who you are, whether you are one of an order of thousands or one of a dozen. You are the best Jedi I have ever known.”

Now he is uncomfortable, squirming a little. “Now I know you are lying to bring me comfort,” he teases, a little redness coming into his cheeks under his auburn beard. Padmé elbows him gently in the ribs in reply. “Nevertheless, I appreciate the sentiment.” He stands, signalling that the discussion of his feelings is over, and stretches. “Shall we run the lines again? We might have a breakthrough this time.” Padmé nods.

“And if all else fails, I’ll be the scary Sith and you can be Jedi Jack-Hammer, the galaxy’s last defence against evil.” Obi-Wan snorts.

“I doubt our fearless leaders would care for that,” he points out. Padmé shrugs.

“It’s not like they’re not here to complain.” It’s true. Both have been recalled to their roles within the Imperial Senate (even thinking the name makes Padmé gag) and will be on Coruscant (Imperial Centre, another loathsome title) for the next month or more. Their absence leaves Major Seev as nominal commander of the base, considering neither Padmé nor Obi-Wan want the authority or the burden of command,)

(she should, she knows. the Padmé she’d been before would have. She should be the leader of this part of the Resistance, fast becoming the largest and best known of the cells. But Seev loves the minutiae of administrative work, and Padmé loathes it; what’s more, both Mon and Bail trust the man implicitly. That’s enough for Padmé, although she still watches him. It’s not personal. She keeps tabs on everyone.

Even Obi-Wan.)

He hands her the datapad. “We are fine with the first part,” he says, his voice businesslike. Padmé eyes him carefully. He seems – not enthused, per se, but determined, as he fixes the Sith mask over his face. “Shall we go from –”

**FOCUS IN.**

_The JEDI is riding the SITH on the ground._

**JEDI** :

Have you ever stopped to consider the illogicality of your creed?

**SITH:**

Only a Jedi would want to have a philosophical debate at a time like this.

_But he sounds pleased._

**JEDI:**

That there can be only ever two Sith, the master, the apprentice. Does he not fear you might kill him in his sleep?

_Pause for erotic noises._

**SITH (breathlessly):**

My master has not unveiled to me the full extent of his knowledge. I have much still to learn. By the stars, you’re tight.

**JEDI:**

Thank you. But theoretically, could someone kill him in his sleep? If they wanted.

**SITH (suspicious):**

Why do you ask?

**JEDI (with an innocent air about her):**

Oh, no reason.

Padmé snorts. “No reason my ass,” she laughs. “Do you think Vader thinks about stuff like this?”

“I don’t know.” Obi-Wan’s voice is like ice. He hates even the mention of Darth Vader, who destroyed Anakin so thoroughly. “But I think the writer of this is a Jedi.”

Padmé opens her mouth to argue, before snapping it shut. “They know too much,” she agrees. “It has to be.” Her eyes widen. “It’s not you, is it?” Obi-Wan rips the mask off.

“Don’t insult me,” he snaps, voice clipped. “I would write pornography much better than this.” Padmé shudders, gripped by a sudden, terrible fear. Obi-Wan raises an eyebrow at her; her expression must show her horror. “What is it?” he asks, tone returning to normal. Padmé puts her hands over her eyes.

“You don’t think…” she says, barely able to parse the words. “That it might be…”

“Yes?” Padmé cringes inside.

“Master Yoda?”

She can’t look. There is only silence. Padmé manages to remove her hands from her face, only to see the stunned expression on Obi-Wan’s. “No,” he manages, sounding like he’s been hit over the head with something extremely heavy. “No. Surely not.”

Padmé glances down at her datapad. “So tight you are, hmm hmm,” she says, in an appalling impersonation of the great Master. Obi-Wan looks briefly offended on the part of the Jedi, before a slow, shameless grin comes over his face.

He is already starting to chuckle when Padmé doubles over laughing.

“By the gods,” Padmé gasps, when she can talk again without her ribs aching. “I’m getting too old for this.” Obi-Wan shakes his head, but he’s still smiling.

“Let’s run the lines again,” he suggests.


	3. An Erotic Reimagining - Part Two

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The day of the shoot arrives.
> 
> Obi-Wan is freaking out.

“Much better,” Aveera says, after Padmé completes her last line. “Padmé, you bring a wonderful sense of ironic whimsy to the part of the JEDI. Knight Kenobi, you manage to portray the SITH as an individual of deceitful cunning and terrible ideals who still manages to have a shred of humanity about him. Excellent work, the pair of you.”

“Thank you, Aveera,” Obi-Wan manages, looking slightly bewildered. It is probably the first time he has ever been complimented for being bad, Padmé thinks, amused.

“The set is due to be completed by the end of this week,” Aveera continues. Thankfully, the multiple debates over ‘real desert planet’ or ‘let’s just make one in the spare hangar’ fell towards the latter option. Padmé doesn’t relish getting sand in every part of her body it can worm its way into, but at least she won’t be taking her clothes off in the middle of a desert.

_Coarse, rough, and irritating_ , drifts up at her from the past. She wants to smile at the memory and cry at its loss. Her Anakin, before he became a Knight, who was so awful at flirting that he may have been the worst at it in all the galaxy.

“Padmé?” Aveera asks, and Padmé comes back to reality. Everyone’s looking at her. It must not be the first time Aveera has called her name.

“Yes?” she asks. Aveera takes pity on her.

“Your schedule?” the other woman prompts. “For the shoot? Knight Kenobi is not available until the week after next.” Padmé fixes Obi-Wan with a sharp look. She knows perfectly well that he has no missions booked until next month. The making of this holo is currently top priority.

“Knight Kenobi,” she begins, and Obi-Wan narrows his eyes at her innocent tone. He’s accustomed to all her tricks by now. “Indeed, you must be mistaken. We have no new missions until the turn of the moon. As soon as the set is completed, Aveera, we will be available to begin shooting the holo.”

There is a clapping sound at the end of the table that makes everyone look. Kaylee is flushed with excitement, clapping her hands in delight, and despite herself Padmé smiles at the girl. “That’s the spirit, Kaylee,” she says brightly. “Freeing the galaxy from tyrannic rule the unconventional way. I’m sure we’re all as eager to begin as our young friend there.”

_I really don’t like you,_ Obi-Wan thinks snippily. Padmé beams at him.

_You sound like a crotchety old maid,_ she replies, and his scowl deepens. Stupid attractive man, Padmé thinks fondly, and Obi-Wan’s scowl fades, cheeks reddening. _Oops. You weren’t meant to hear that._

_I will endeavour to pretend I didn’t._

But he’s still blushing.

Two days before the shoot is scheduled, Padmé is awoken by a sharp tapping on the door of her quarters. She stomps to the door. She’s developed a dreadful habit of lying in on her days off, and justifies this to herself in a number of creative ways; she’s technically a mother and needs her rest, she worked all her life prior to becoming a presumed-dead Rebel and as such saw a truly massive amount of early mornings, she frequently risks life and limb as well as taking both, and as such sleeping in is hardly the worst of her sins.

She pulls open the door, and the angry words in her mouth die at the sight of bright, bubbly Kaylee. “Yes?”” she manages instead, voice only slightly clipped.

“Have you only just awoken, ma’am?” the girl asks, bustling past her into Padmé’s quarters, her arms loaded with Padmé yawns.

“Something like that,” she replies dryly. Kaylee drops her burdens onto Padmé’s desk and turns around, running her eyes over Padmé in a way that is both assessing and very businesslike. “Have you need for me, Kaylee?” Padmé asks, fighting the urge to cross her arms over her chest. Her sleepwear is thin and clinging, and Padmé is not as young as she once was. Certain parts of her… _sag_ more than they used to.

“Aveera sent me,” the Zeltron girl replies. “I’m to get you ready for the shoot.” Padmé raises an eyebrow.

“Aren’t you a bit early?” she asks. Kaylee smiles, rifling through her bags. It’s odd, how such a cheerful individual can look so threatening.

“Not at all,” she replies, and brandishes something that looks disturbingly like a laser at Padmé. “we have so much to do.”

Kaylee had not lied. By the end of the day, Padmé has had every patch of hair removed from below her neck, including some in exceptionally personal places. “Surely this is not necessary,” she had protested faintly (her! Faint!) earlier in the morning, when Kaylee had been busily using her laser-thing to remove prickles of dark hair from under her arms.

“Hairlessness is the new thing, apparently,” Kaylee had frowned, biting her lip as she wielded her implement. “Maybe because the Emperor doesn’t have any.”

Padmé had let out a horrible-sounding snort of laughter at that, and Kaylee had been much less formal with her after. Which had come in handy, when the girl had had to remove little wisps of hair from an area of Padmé’s anatomy, access to which had required Padmé to hold her knees to her chest, look up at the ceiling, and imagine herself many planets away.

The humiliation had not ended there. After the hair was gone, Kaylee had rubbed her down with a sort of rough, grainy paste, and then sent her into the ‘fresher to rinse it off. Padmé had not been able to stop touching her skin, softer than even during her time as queen, and flawlessly smooth, tone even and clear. Padmé had been allowed to dress after being slathered in floral-scented cream, but Padmé had noticed Kaylee’s eyes snag on the stretchmarks on her stomach, from when she’d had the twins. The thought occupies her through the trimming and buffing of her finger and toenails, the trimming of her mass of dark curls, the treatment Kaylee works into it to make it soft and shiny. Kaylee doesn’t seem to mind that Padmé is quiet.

If someone – someone _Imperial_ sees the holo, someone who recognises her and remembers she’d been pregnant, back during the war, it could be disastrous. For Luke, for Leia, for the brave people keeping her children safe. And for Padmé, because she is not self-deluded, and she knows that she has survived the loss of her planet and her family and her husband, but she would not survive that. The loss of her children. The disappearance of their light into the dark folds of the Empire.

No mother could stand that.

“Kaylee,” Padmé says softly. “There’s one more thing.”

“What is it?” the girl asks absently, attention firmly focussed on the robes on her lap as she alters them for Padmé’s height.

“You saw the marks on my stomach,” Padmé says, and at that Kaylee looks at her, eyes serious. “Is there any way to hide them? With makeup, or a cream, or even lighting of some sort…” Understanding comes into the girls’ face. Her busy little hand still on the pile of cloth.

“No one will know you’ve had babies, Padmé,” she says softly. “I will make sure of it.”

The following evening, Padmé is working at her desk, datapads spread out everywhere as she works on her most recent project, analysis of trade routes in the Outer Rim. Her particular interest is in weak spots where pirate, slaver and Hutt convoys of supplies might be disrupted. The Rebellion is wary of stealing directly from the Empire, but in the Outer Rim, the Empire’s hold has been fraying. Padmé doesn’t mind stealing from other thieves. She especially doesn’t mind stealing from slavers, and her missions often involve several detours on the way back to base to return stolen individuals to their homes. She leaves with their thanks, and leaves them enough firepower to make lives very unpleasant for the next group of slavers who think their home might be easy pickings.

The problem with saving the galaxy, she knows, is that the damn thing is so kriffing _big_.

The door to her quarters slams open without so much as a knock. Obi-Wan is in the doorway, livid, but Padmé can’t stop staring at him. He appears to have received the Kaylee treatment; his lovely red-gold hair is trimmed back to shorter even than his Negotiator days, and the beard… the rugged spacer beard he’s been working on for the last five years is gone. “A trim,” he says, in a voice that is perhaps meant to be high and female. “That’s what she said. And now look at me!” Padmé leans back in her chair, raking his eyes over his form.

“Did she take the hair off of your ass too?” she asks. Obi-Wan purples.

“What do you mean, _too_ – _oh_ ,” he breaks off. “Yes! She said perhaps I was part-Wookie, the amount of fuzz I had on me!” Padmé bites her cheek and has to wait a few moments before she is sure her voice is steady.

“I’m sure she was only trying to put you at ease,” she says, conciliatory. “I think you look very nice. Besides, no one will see your face behind the mask.”

Obi-Wan is still sulking. “Then why take my beard off in the first place,” he mutters. Padmé shrugs.

“It might make breathing with the mask on easier?” she suggests. Obi-Wan brightens.

“Fair point,” he concedes, and sinks down in her spare chair. Padmé can’t resist giving him a bit more of a poke.

“Did she rub you with the grainy stuff?” she asks. Obi-Wan nods.

“Yes. It was very disconcerting.” His tone suggests it was the same level of distressing as the death of a close personal friend.

“Well, think of it as a trial run for tomorrow, when we’ll be naked in front of several of our colleagues,” she tells him bracingly. Obi-Wan pales. “Which will in itself be a trial run for when we’re naked in front of half the galaxy.” Now he looks ill.

“Don’t remind me.” Padmé’s humour fades.

“You can still say no, my friend,” she tells him. Obi-Wan shakes his head.

“Think of what we could do for the galaxy with ten thousand credits,” he replies, echoing Padmé’s own words from weeks ago back to her. “That was just for money. This… could tip the balance of galactic opinion in our favour.” Padmé smiles sadly at him.

“Anakin would think it was silly,” she murmurs. “All these dramatics. He would just unsheathe his lightsaber and ask who I wanted him to kill first.” Obi-Wan, much to her surprise, chuckles. He so rarely does as mention of her husband.

“Anakin would be cross at the thought of anyone but him seeing you bare,” he retorts. “There would be no holo. He was a jealous boy.”

He was. And now he is gone.

The Jedi robes are itchy, bulky, and smell like they’ve been in storage too long. Padmé wonders where they were liberated from. At least they fit her perfectly, thanks to Kaylee’s talent with a needle and thread. True to her word, the girl had applied a thick paste to Padmé’s stretchmarks, and now they are so well concealed Padmé can almost forget she ever had them. Kaylee does the same to several of Obi-Wan’s more prominent scars, then applies several layers of makeup in places to fake different ones. Padmé asks why.

“If he’s ever captured, the scars on the holo won’t match his real ones, so he won’t be able to be identified by them,” is Aveera’s distracted reply. Kaylee nods, tongue caught in her teeth as she traces a healing wound onto Obi-Wan’s right shoulder. The man himself is rigid with tension. Padmé pats his arm to try to comfort him, and Obi-Wan pulls away as if burned.

Aveera has decided to shoot the holo sequentially. “It’s not always the case,” the Twi-lek says imperiously, waving at Ranyr to move a cactus slightly to the left. “But you and Knight Kenobi aren’t professionals, so I’m trying to keep this as simple as possible.”

“Thanks,” Padmé says wryly. They get through the first part without issues. Obi-Wan changes once the holorecorder starts. His Force presence, usually warm and serene, becomes darker, almost malevolent. Padmé has always been able to sense him, since the day she came back to life, but she’s never felt him like this.

He bites out his lines with sharp precision, countered by Padmé’s character’s easy humour and irreverent nature. Even the mutter of, “Darth Potato,” comes out with a sense of viciousness. Padmé is, despite her better nature, fascinated. Even in the worst of the war, Obi-Wan was never cruel.

They run the first scene more times than Padmé can count. More than once, Padmé messes up her line, too busy staring at the lines of Obi-Wan’s body, encased in black leather which clings sinfully to his broad shoulders and thick thighs. She can’t see his face. It’s almost a blessing.

Another time Obi-Wan trips on a fake lizard and falls flat on his face, sand clinging to every inch of him when he stands back up. Kaylee has to dust him off with a brush and straighten the lines of his leather armour.

But all of that pales to the trouble they have when the clothes come off.

Aveera tells them to take a break when Padmé accidentally elbows Obi-Wan in the eye when they are trying to gracefully get on the cloak. Padmé has to admire the other woman’s fortitude. They’d pressed on, when Padmé got her foot caught in the leggings and had tripped, or when Obi-Wan had turned the wrong way and pressed a tender area of his anatomy against one of the fake cacti. Padmé would have thrown in the towel around the time a long time before this.

She clutches her robe a little tighter to her shoulders and seethes. All this work, all the planning, and she can’t get out of her stupid head enough to do the job.

_It’s not just you._ She looks over at Obi-Wan. He too has a robe around him, his hands wrapped around a mug of tea. _I am terrible at this._

_You’re wonderful,_ she sends on impulse.

“I suppose we should start again,” Aveera says heavily. Padmé sighs.

“There is something I might be able to do,” Kaylee speaks up. Five heads turn to her, and her pink cheeks darken a little. “Please don’t shout at me though if it doesn’t work.”

“There won’t be any shouting, Kaylee,” Padmé says, as reassuringly as she can right now, frustrated as she is. Kaylee doesn’t look reassured.

“Okay,” she says hesitantly. “Well, it’s just that Zeltrons have a… somewhat limited telepathic ability, as well as high levels of pheromone secretion. It might not even work, but I could… try to help you feel more relaxed. If you were all right with it.”

Obi-Wan raises an eyebrow. “How relaxed?” he asks, voice dry. “I have some experience with mind-altering substances, my dear. I would hate to become completely uninhibited.” Of course Kaylee is blushing harder now. Obi-Wan in a thin robe calling her dear. The poor girl.

“Nothing like that!” she assures him. “You might care less that you’re being filmed. You might feel more comfortable in being in front of people. I can’t make you do anything you don’t want to do.”

Padmé considers it. She’s been under the effect of aphrodisiacs before, ranging from a mild buzz (a diplomatic dinner unintentionally contaminated by a local pollen) to three days of savage, animalistic lovemaking (Anakin had brought home a cake from a Jedi scouting mission, considered a local delicacy). Padmé still has the scar on her shoulder from where her husband had bitten her, while he took her from behind, both of them curled on their sides in their Coruscant bed, the hard planes of his chest against her back. Anakin was always getting them into trouble – but then, he always got them out again.

“I want to try it,” she says. Obi-Wan’s voice startles her. She hadn’t realised he was so close behind her.

“As do I.”

Padmé was expecting something more dramatic. Instead, Kaylee sits down cross-legged, inviting Padmé and Obi-Wan to do the same. She takes Obi-Wan’s hand in her right and Padmé’s in her left, and tells them to connect their free hands. It doesn’t take long, before a wave of something both alien and comforting starts to build, cresting until it is almost too much to bear, before fading away to something that hums in the background of her mind, like a song she remembers from a very long time ago.

Padmé opens her eyes. She feels… _good_. Hazy, but present, and hyper focused on the task at hand. She’s got work to do, and it is five foot ten inches, auburn, and staring at her with the same weird intensity Padmé feels in herself. As if in a dream, she and Obi-Wan get into their assigned places. He smells good, strange-familiar all at once, and he wants her.

Porn. To save the galaxy.

Aveera calls, “Action!”

Bonus snippet:

(“Master Evvus was right,” Aveera says softly, for once forgetting to refer to her former owner without the honorific. She watches Padmé and Knight Kenobi grapple with each other on the cloak with a sort of dazed awe. “Zeltrons are a gift from the gods on a porn shoot. I just never knew why.” Kaylee, at her side, shrugs, more comfortable now she’s not the centre of attention.

“It would be better if there was another of my kind here,” she says matter-of-factly. “We could amplify the pheromones between us, creating a stronger effect.” Aveera gives the younger woman a quick side-eye, as Padmé bites Knight Kenobi’s throat, drawing a sharp moan from the man writhing beneath her.

“I’m not sure we could handle ‘better’,” Aveera comments wryly, before regarding the scene before her. “Vix! Zoom in on that, we’ve got a holo to shoot!”)


End file.
